HI all ,
I am planning to take a new phone. Nokia N78 is the only smartphone i owned till now and it was a perfect device for me. My friends has android, iPhones n wp7. Out of all , i like the interface of wp7 the most, although android offers lots of customization to it.
Please tell me if windows phone 8(lumia 920/820) is the device for me. I like to have the following features in my phone.

1. a battery that lasts 16-24 hours with no nfc, 30 minutes of phone calls, light bluetooth activity and gaming, 30 minutes of browsing on 3g/2g , 2 hours of music.
2.ability to view the call duration in the call logs. I heard this feature is not available in wp8 yet. Are there any 3rd party apps for the same.
3.option to save messages as drafts.
4.separate volume controls for calls,media , applications.
5.high durability on the build. I often drop my phones.
6.call blocking feature/do not disturb. any apps ?
7.FM radio. will it be available in any future updates ?
8.sharing files over bluetooth.
9. 820 has a feature of installing apps from sd card. Does 920 have it ?

3. That's supposed to be coming. I don't know if it's in the Portico update or the one after.
4. There's no separate volume control.
5. The 920 is supposedly well built. But if you're always dropping your phone, get a case.
7. Supposedly they just ran out of time on this. Rumors are that it'll come eventually.
8. I don't know if you can do this natively in WP8. You can't in WP7. But Nokia is releasing a Bluetooth app to do this for WP7, and I assume it would come to WP8 as well if you can't do it already.
9. The 920 doesn't have a SD card slot, so no.

2 and 6 are not supported, but I don't know if there are any apps that cover that functionality.

Congrats on the smart decision first of all. Stand out in your crowd with this amazing OS is not a bad idea at all.

1. Lots of ppl complain about battery life issues. I haven't had 30 minutes of calling in a day yet with my L920, but with no nfc, light bluetooth usage+wifi, music listening, searching and browsing, checking in with 4square, facebook, marketplace, calendar, and some other apps, my phone definitely last through the day. I still bring my charger though just in case. Most smartphones these day have similar battery life. My cousin who owns the galaxy s3 also complains about his battery life

2. Only the time the call is made shown in the call logs, seems like there's a few apps in marketplace that can track the duration, but dunno how well they perform

3.SMS? I don't think so, but you can back up all the messages. You can save emails as drafts, as you can probably expect.

5. L920 has really good build in my opinion, one of the most solid phones I've owned thanks to its uni-body design. Some people complain there's creeks when press on the bottom/side, and the vibration rattling issue but both prove to be not really issues but rather how the inside of the phone is constructed

6. Not sure about this one. Anyone? But found a few apps that seem to do the job

7. I had FM radio on WP7 so I didn't even notice there's no FM radio on WP8! I'm sure they will add that soon.. and there's apps that can do FM radio as well no data required.

8. The Nokia Exclusive file transfer app will have this feature soon, right now it can copy your old contacts and messages from old phone (almost any device)

9. 920 does NOT have SD card slot. Only built-in memory but I find it more than enough

I have to say your requirement is quite demanding! Some features I used to use on my old phones too but I didn't even notice since I started to use WP until now, haha.

Congrats on the smart decision first of all. Stand out in your crowd with this amazing OS is not a bad idea at all.

1. Lots of ppl complain about battery life issues. I haven't had 30 minutes of calling in a day yet with my L920, but with no nfc, light bluetooth usage+wifi, music listening, searching and browsing, checking in with 4square, facebook, marketplace, calendar, and some other apps, my phone definitely last through the day. I still bring my charger though just in case. Most smartphones these day have similar battery life. My cousin who owns the galaxy s3 also complains about his battery life

2. Only the time the call is made shown in the call logs, seems like there's a few apps in marketplace that can track the duration, but dunno how well they perform

3.SMS? I don't think so, but you can back up all the messages. You can save emails as drafts, as you can probably expect.

5. L920 has really good build in my opinion, one of the most solid phones I've owned thanks to its uni-body design. Some people complain there's creeks when press on the bottom/side, and the vibration rattling issue but both prove to be not really issues but rather how the inside of the phone is constructed

6. Not sure about this one. Anyone? But found a few apps that seem to do the job

7. I had FM radio on WP7 so I didn't even notice there's no FM radio on WP8! I'm sure they will add that soon.. and there's apps that can do FM radio as well no data required.

8. The Nokia Exclusive file transfer app will have this feature soon, right now it can copy your old contacts and messages from old phone (almost any device)

9. 920 does NOT have SD card slot. Only built-in memory but I find it more than enough

I have to say your requirement is quite demanding! Some features I used to use on my old phones too but I didn't even notice since I started to use WP until now, haha.

Good luck!

920's 32gb is more than enough for me. But is it possible to copy the xap files to the phone and install apps from it ? . lumia 820 has that feature.
This feature of 820 makes me want to choose it over 920. Data plans are costly where i live and limited availability of free wifi.

920's 32gb is more than enough for me. But is it possible to copy the xap files to the phone and install apps from it ? . lumia 820 has that feature.
This feature of 820 makes me want to choose it over 920. Data plans are costly where i live and limited availability of free wifi.

I'm not certain about this because I've never done it. In my opinion if you like having an external storage option and you don't mind how the phone looks, Lumia 820 is also a great device. Not as good in terms of some specs but it solves a few problems of yours - the battery (you can exchange batteries), extra storage, and the xap files you are talking about.

920's 32gb is more than enough for me. But is it possible to copy the xap files to the phone and install apps from it ? . lumia 820 has that feature.
This feature of 820 makes me want to choose it over 920. Data plans are costly where i live and limited availability of free wifi.

Hey, the way to install XAP files on WP without using the store involves certain steps. You need to own a developer account with an active subscription (and then use the developer registration tool that comes with the SDK), or you need to jailbreak your phone. I've done the former. You then need to use Visual Studio to load the SLN files, and then you from there deploy to the device for debugging. Once you load the app onto the device, it stays there even if you stop the debugging.